HBO likens working with Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin to being in a "rocky" marriage

Back in September, about a month after the second season of finale of HBO's Game of Thrones prequel show House of the Dragon, author George R.R. Martin — who wrote the books on which both shows are based — wrote openly on his blog about where he felt the show had gone wrong, promising bigger, "more toxic" changes from the source material ahead should the show stay on its current course.

Martin deleted the post not long after, but the damage had been done. Game of Thrones is the biggest hit in HBO's history and was probably the biggest TV show of the 2010s, so to have its creator openly criticizing the prequel show was wild. It's the kind of thing you wonder if the two teams could come back from.

HBO executive Casey Bloys recently addressed the spat at a press conference. “He’s very important to me, to us,” he told reporters, per Deadline. “But when we put shows together, it’s like putting a marriage together. Marriages can be difficult, especially when [House of the Dragon showrunner] Ryan Condal is making creative decisions and adapting work. It can be fraught. Any marriage can get rocky. I would prefer everybody get along, of course. But with the creative process, we are always going to have bumps. That’s to be expected.”

That sounds pretty much like the statement HBO released in the wake of Martin's original blog post:

"There are few greater fans of George R.R. Martin and his book Fire & Blood than the creative team on House of the Dragon, both in production and at HBO. Commonly, when adapting a book for the screen, with its own format and limitations, the showrunner ultimately is required to make difficult choices about the characters and stories the audience will follow. We believe that Ryan Condal and his team have done an extraordinary job and the millions of fans the series has amassed over the first two seasons will continue to enjoy it."

This is a uniquely uncomfortable situation. Although I hope for the best for both Martin and for House of the Dragon, I'm more on Martin's "side," as it were. I enjoyed the second season of House of the Dragon and didn't expect it to remain 100% true to Martin's book Fire & Blood; I don't think anyone did. But at least from my perspective, the changes made to the source material went well beyond massaging, streamlining, and buttressing the story so it works on TV. I thought the second season changed things to the point where it wasn't the same story anymore, such as having the characters of Alicent Hightower (Olivia Cooke) and Rhaenyra Targaryen (Emma D'Arcy) work together, whereas in the book they're two of the driving forces behind a bitter rivalry that explodes into brutal war. I'm sure that Condal and his team have the best of intentions, but this is, in my opinion, simply not the story Martin told. I might be okay with that if the show improved on the source material, but I also think the changes have made the story less rich, interesting and entertaining, if still a decent watch. Looking at the book and show side by side, I can understand why the author, having tried to exert his influence through private channels, felt the need to go public.

And I'm not sure it's over. I'll be curious to see if the House of the Dragon team pivots when season 3 comes out in 2026. In the meanwhile, a new prequel series called A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms is on its way in 2025.

"Maybe we'll try again" with Jon Snow sequel, says HBO exec

Bloys also weighed in on the idea for a Game of Thrones sequel show about Jon Snow, played by Kit Harington. Word that this show was in development got out a while ago, but last we heard it had been put on the shelf.

“We develop a lot of ideas," Bloys told reporters. "Sometimes they don’t work. We all agreed it didn’t come together, Maybe we’ll try again.”

It's true that HBO is working on a bunch of Game of Thrones spinoff ideas behind the scenes, most of which it's never announced; word of them only gets out because of leaks. Because of that, I have some sympathy for execs like Bloys when journalists and fans ask for status updates, or act like HBO can't get its act together after we learn that this or that spinoff isn't going forward. We're not supposed to know about most of this stuff anyway; it's okay for the network to experiment with a new idea behind the scenes, and if they decide it's not worth going forward, they probably have a good reason. I'd feel differently if HBO formally announced this stuff and then shelved it, but as it stands it feels like we're getting into a tizzy about nothing burgers.

So if they do decide to revisit some kind of Jon Snow sequel idea in the future, cool. I like learning about things early, but there's another part of me that only wants to know about it if HBO feels it's far enough along to be worth announcing.

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